Just Before Sleep
by ShilohPR
Summary: Bella is a young single mother struggling to control her paranoia and neurosis, when a new family arrives in town, upsetting what little stability she's managed to build for herself. Vampward, AU, a bit OOC, swearing, teen pregnancy, full summary inside.
1. Prologue

**FULL SUMMARY:**

As a little girl, Bella was visited by a strange and beautiful man who promised someday to find her again and take her away. Now a young mother to her own little girl, the memory has been shuffled to that part of her brain to which all childhood fantasies and imaginary friends are fated. The arrival of a new family outside of town sends Bella's unstable life reeling again, and brings back to the surface old desires, old hopes, old fears, and old promises.

Vampward, I think Bella's a bit OOC (because she has a personality here . . .) and she has a child, so if you don't like babies, you should skip this story. Twilight AU.

* * *

><p><em>AN: So I hesitated to ever post this. It's actually on Twilighted under a secret name. But I'm posting it now finally because I'm the new and improved don't-give-a-shit-Shiloh and because I actually really want to see this story through. The fact is that if you don't like babies, it's sort of a crackfic. Maybe even if you like babies. I'm writing it from as serious a place as I ever do, but I embrace its crackficness streaks and hope you will too. But if you don't like babies, teen pregnancy, Jacob as a good guy, original characters, AU's, or if you require love at first site for Bella and Edward, this is probably a pass for you. My feelings won't be hurt. I'd rather you only read this if you're enjoying it than read it and send me snooty messages about it.<em>

**In case you missed it, let me reiterate: Bella is a teen mom in this story. **If you don't like it, please don't linger._  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>PROLOGUE<strong>

The crickets were especially loud tonight. Bella huddled under the covers, her tattered old stuffed elephant clutched beneath her chin, his trunk held securely between her teeth. Mom was getting onto her that she needed to stop that, because big girls didn't chew on their stuffed animals, but it was how she felt closest with Tantor. And the closer they were, the safer she felt.

Bella shivered, feeling eyes on her, like someone was watching her sleep. She peeked out from beneath the edge of the covers, but her bedroom door was still closed; Mom wasn't checking in on her. This side of the room was completely still and dark except for a band of light sneaking in beneath the door and a faint glow from her Beauty and the Beast nightlight on the far wall. Belle was her favorite Disney Princess, and not just because they had almost the same name but also because they looked the most alike. She liked Jasmine the second best because she had a pet tiger. Their cat Bunny wasn't quite as much fun as Rahja; in fact, she was really mean and had scratched Bella on the arm yesterday when she'd tried to pet her.

"It's okay, Tantor," Bella whispered into her elephant's fuzzy ear. "Shhh." She ducked back beneath the covers and lay motionless for as long as she possibly could. Something knocked on the windowsill. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath for as long as she could, like Mom had taught her to do when she got scared at night. When finally her chest hurt she gasped for air and listened. There were no more sounds. Cautiously she peeked out from beneath the covers again, this time in the direction of the window.

The woman leaning against the wall gave a short wave and a warm smile.

Bella gasped and pulled the covers back over her head. She counted slowly to ten, then threw the blankets off, sure that, as always, the room would be empty.

It wasn't. The woman continued to lean against the wall, her arms crossed patiently as the moonlight bounced off her pale skin. Bella stared, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and awe. She was beautiful. Her hair was the same warm red as Ariel's and fanned out from her head in long, gentle waves. The face smiling sweetly at Bella was flawless in the moonlight, sharp but somehow gentle, pristine features and dark eyes glowing from the bright moonlight. Tall and thin, exuding power and beauty, Bella knew who this was. It had to be a fairy queen come to announce that everyone had it all wrong and Bella was actually a fairy princess.

Movement to the right showed Bella that the fairy queen had been joined by a man, or perhaps he had been there before and Bella simply hadn't noticed him. This must be the fairy king. Blond like John Smith but with longer hair pulled back, he was every bit as beautiful as the woman, but his face was devoid of any and all emotion. He stared, his face pale and blank.

Bella gaped at them for what felt like forever. But she was seven now and big girls knew that fairy kings and queens didn't really exist and that she was the daughter of Charlie and Renee, not a fairy princess. Was this a dream, then, and these two beautiful people simply figments of her imagination?

Opening her mouth wide, Bella let out a scream, "MOMMY!" The woman took a step toward her but as quickly as she had moved the man had put his hand on her arm. They remained frozen like that as Bella listened for any movement from down the hall where her mother would be sound asleep. There came none. She continued to watch the two as she slipped from the bed, her bare feet padding along the hardwood floors and Tantor gripped firmly in her arms. The two did not move as she opened the bedroom door and disappeared into the hall.

Mom's door was, like always, cracked open. She knew her mom was going to be upset with her for not staying in bed. Perhaps she should just go back? No, she would ask her mom first if this was just a dream and then decide from there. Slowly she pushed the door open, then darted inside and leapt up onto the bed beside her sleeping mother's form.

"Mom! Mommy, mommy, mommy," Bella chanted, shaking Mom's shoulders until the woman groaned and sat up.

"Bella?" she asked, rubbing her eyes and glancing at the clock. "Bella, sweetie, what's wrong?"

"Mommy, there are two people in my room and they are the most beautiful people I have ever seen," Bella explained. She threw her arms around her mother's neck, not caring that Tantor fell to the floor, and asked, "Is it just a dream?"

She felt Mom smile into her shoulder as she nodded, "Yes, sweetie, it's just a dream."

"Did you set the alarm?" Bella pressed, pulling away to give her most serious look, which made Mom laugh and nod.

"Yes, my little woman, I set the alarm every night. You are perfectly safe."

"I saw them, though."

"Did you count to ten?"

"Yes and they were still there," Bella insisted.

"Well I bet they are gone now," Mom assured her. "Now that you've woken the whole house up, I bet you've scared them away," she teased, poking Bella in the side. "Look, you even woke Bunny up." She pointed to where the ugly orange cat had hopped up on the windowsill, her back arched and her yellow eyes wide as she scratched frantically at the window.

Bella frowned, "I'm sorry, Bunny. I'm sorry, Mom."

"It's all right, sweetheart. Do you need me to walk you back to bed?"

"No, I'm a big girl."

Mom hugged and kissed her, and Bella yanked Tantor up from the floor before creeping back down the hall and tiptoeing back into her bedroom.

The people were still there, frozen like statues on either side of the window. Bella watched them as she crawled back into bed and pulled Tantor onto her lap. She continued to watch for a long moment before asking softly,

"Are you really there?"

"You do not need to be afraid, little girl," the woman offered gently, taking a step closer. "Do you remember me?" Bella shook her head. "Oh. Perhaps you did not see us. We saw you at the park today with your mother. You were on the swings."

Bella nodded and her lower lip quivered as she asked even more softly, "Why are you in my room?" The woman's smile was so kind and warm, and her voice so gentle that Bella felt she should love and trust this woman. But still something about her made the back of her neck prickle and little goosebumps spring up along her arm. She felt her heart beat faster in her chest as the woman's dark eyes rolled over her tiny form.

"Are you afraid of me, little girl?"

"No," Bella assured her, afraid it would hurt the woman's feelings if she said yes.

The woman laughed in response and insisted, "You are very cute but a little liar. Still, you amuse me, so I will make it quick." Instantly the woman was towering over Bella. She pressed her fingers to the little girl's face and Bella shuddered, surprised at how cool they felt against her warm cheek. Bella's eyes leapt to the man in confusion as the woman lowered her face to the little girl's. Her lips pressed gently to Bella's cheek, then lowered to her throat, and Bella realized with alarm that she couldn't scream. Her eyes simply widened as they took in the blank stare of the beautiful man.

Suddenly the man's mouth turned down into a frown and his lips moved. Though Bella heard nothing, the woman suddenly stood straight up and hissed like a snake. The two continued to stare at each other, their bodies moving as though they were communicating yet no noise was made.

Then Bella blinked and the woman was gone. Only the man remained, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, his eyes boring intently into Bella's. She stared back, confused and curious as to who he was and what he was going to do. Her eyes followed him when he finally moved, stepping slowly and gracefully across the shadows of her room until he could sit beside her. He didn't touch her, just watched her, and then finally smiled. Bella let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"Bonjour," he greeted, holding out his hand to her.

Bella stared hard at it before inquiring, "What does that mean?"

"It means 'hello' in French."

She remembered that people in France spoke French, and so asked in her piping voice, "Are you from France?" Something in his smile made her relax; something about the darkness of his eyes made her trust him.

He grinned and shrugged, "My parents were born there." Then, hesitating, he offered with a fake-French accent, "If I was French, I would sound like this." Bella giggled and his smiled widened.

"You sound like Lumiere," she informed him, turning to face him fully and clasping her hands in her lap.

"Who is this Lumiere?"

"He's the candlestick!" she cried, throwing her hands into the air like he should know this.

"Ah, of course." He pointed to her nightlight where Belle and the Beast were dancing and raised a questioning eyebrow. Bella nodded. "And you like the story of Beauty and the Beast a lot?"

Bella beamed, "It's my favorite movie of all time. I wish I was Belle."

"You look very much like her, I think," the man offered, leaning in and studying her face closely.

It made Bella nervous to have him this near her. She remained very still and closed her eyes, feeling his cool breath against her skin.

"No," he encouraged gently, reaching out to touch her cheek. His finger was cool like the woman's had been. "Open your eyes, princess."

She did so and was surprised at the blackness of the eyes staring back at her. She had never seen eyes so dark.

He grinned at her nervousness and leaned back, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. You're a very beautiful little girl."

"Th-thank you," Bella stammered. "You're very beautiful, too. I mean handsome. Boys are handsome."

The man laughed, low and warm, and touched her cheek again, "Thank you. You are blushing."

"I do that a lot," she frowned, quickly looking down to her lap in embarrassment.

He watched her silently for a moment, then asked, "What is your name?"

"Bella."

"Bella!" he repeated, pointing again to the nightlight. "So close to Belle. Are you sure you are not in fact Belle?"

Her smile was back as she giggled, "No, I'm not."

"I think you are. Maybe I can call you Belle? Does anyone call you that?"

"No," she shook her head. "I mean, you can call me that! But no one else calls me that. My mom calls me Bella and my dad calls me Bells sometimes. What's your name?"

"Je m'appelle James." At her confused look, he explained, "It means 'my name is James' in French. J'mappelle James."

"J'mappelle Belle," she repeated, stumbling a bit over the funny words in her mouth. When James held his hand out, she slipped hers into it again. Instead of a quick shake, though, he raised her hand to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to her fingers. She giggled and made a face, "That's what the Beast does."

"Are you calling me a Beast?"

"No!" she quickly assured him. "You are more like the handsome prince that he turns into. You even have his same hair." He didn't react when she reached around and wound her fingers into the long ponytail at his neck.

"Well, little Belle, I'm afraid I am very much like the ugly scary Beast."

"But you aren't ugly or scary at all," she argued. "I think you are very nice."

"Thank you, but you _should_ be scared of me."

"Why? You aren't going to hurt me, are you? I think that lady was. You made her stop, didn't you?"

James frowned now and Bella feared she had said something wrong as he nodded slowly, "Yes, she was going to hurt you. But I made her stop. I told her I was going to hurt you instead."

"But you aren't."

"How are you so sure?" he asked, suddenly leaning close and pressing his face near hers. Bella gasped and leaned back in surprise, her eyes widening. "I'm a scary monster, beautiful Belle." His hand reached out and cool fingers pressed to her cheek. Bella remained frozen as he leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. "But I will not hurt you tonight."

"Pinky promise?" Bella asked after a moment, her voice shaky.

The smile returned as James leaned back, "Yes, pinky promise." He looped his pinky through her extended one and gave a soft shake. "Now I'm afraid I have to leave you and return to that scary evil woman." He laughed as he said it but Bella's frown made him fall quiet. "What is it?"

"Why do you have to go?" The question seemed to startle him. Bella watched as his beautiful face took on a look of what she could only read as confusion, his head tilted to the side as he watched her closely.

"You do not want me to leave?" he pressed. Bella shook her head. "But why not? I have already told you that I am dangerous and scary. If I stayed, I would hurt you."

"But the Beast doesn't leave Belle," she argued. "They have to stay together."

He gave her a knowing nod, "Yes, but they are apart for a little while, are they not? That's when the mean Gaston comes in and tries to steal Belle away from the Beast."

"I know, but—"

"I told you I have to leave, my beautiful Belle, but I didn't say you would never see me again. I can't leave you forever, of course. I wish that I could but I'm afraid you are doomed . . . that I am your fate."

"Is she your girlfriend?" Bella asked curiously, ignoring all the talk about doom. She was trying to see the two of them together and holding hands like her mother did with her new boyfriend. It was hard to picture, though she couldn't deny they were perfectly beautiful for each other.

He laughed and nodded, "Yes, she is. And she will not be happy with me if she finds out that I left you alive tonight so you must keep this whole thing a secret, okay?"

"She wanted me to be dead?" Bella squeaked. He nodded. "Okay, I won't tell anyone." She pursed her lips together and pantomimed turning a key in them.

He patted her knee, "Good girl. You don't tell anyone and someday I'll come back for you."

"And take me away?" she guessed.

"Yes, I'll take you away. You'll be all grown up then."

She frowned, "But what if you forget about me? Or you can't find me? Mom said we might move to—"

Instantly his cool finger was on her lips, interrupting her as he insisted, "Don't tell me. You see, that's the fun part. I have to find you. I'll wait until you're all grown up, and then I'll find you."

"How?"

"It's what I do, little Belle. I've never not been able to find someone."

"And you won't forget me?"

"How could I ever forget you? You're my beautiful Belle," he assured her, smiling wider as she yawned. After all, it was very late now and she hadn't been able to fall asleep. "You're tired, princess. You should sleep."

She frowned, "But you'll leave."

"I must leave now anyway. I've stayed too long as it is. Now lie down and go to sleep like a good little girl." Bella pouted but did as he instructed, stretching out beneath the covers and resting her head on her pillow. "Close your eyes."

She did so, regretting that now she couldn't see his beautiful face in the moonlight. She could feel him lean closer, though, and instinctively held her breath as he pushed her hair to the side and pressed his lips to her neck. He remained frozen in this tableaux for long enough to make Bella's heartrate pick up. His lips parted, and she felt his hard teeth touch her skin. But just as soon as she began to wonder if he was going to bite her, the curtains danced around her open window and he was gone, the room empty and silent except for the pounding of Bella's heart.

"À bientôt, little Belle."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

The house was unusually quiet, and though I could hear the game all the way from the driveway, there was no typical yelling or cheering to accompany it. I tried to open the door but growled with frustration when it refused. I had to roll the window down in order to pull the handle from outside; the lock had broken and though Charlie had been promising to fix it for weeks now, it had yet to happen.

I popped the trunk, loaded my arms with as many bags as I could manage, then stumbled up the steps and yelled as I struggled with the door, "Dad? Dad, can you get the door for me?" No answer. The television was on as I passed, and I could see his socked feet dangling over the armrest, so after I wedged the bags onto the counter, I swung back and gave his leg a thwap.

"Dad. Dad!"

"I'm up! Just watching the game," he instantly explained, leaping from the couch and stretching his arms. I rolled my eyes - I was tired, too, but _I_ didn't have time for naps - and in doing so noticed the empty playpen.

"Where's Ava?"

Panic flashed across his face and something punched me in the gut. He yanked the baby monitor off the end table but I had already seen that either it was off or the batteries were dead. I ran up the stairs, flung my bedroom door open, dove inside-

and found Ava sitting contentedly in her crib, chewing on Mumu, her stuffed elephant. She grinned when she saw me and stood up to stretch her arms out to me as I pulled her onto my hip and kissed her forehead.

In the doorway, Charlie scratched his neck, ". . . must have fallen asleep . . . but see, she's fine. It's nothing to panic about."

"Don't tell me what to panic about, Dad," I warned, eyeing him. So I panicked sometimes. I worried a bit too much. I was a first-time mother who even before giving birth had harbored a healthy sense of anxiety about all the dangers waiting to befall me. Instead of explaining myself, I reminded, "You were probably as bad as I am. She's been sitting up here for - it's five, probably an hour! With a dirty diaper. If she gets a rash-"

"I'll go get the groceries," he suggested, turning and walking quickly down the stairs.

"Appy day-dee too woe," Ava sang as I changed her diaper, giggling and wriggling on the table to make it as difficult as possible to change her.

I nibbled her toes and asked, "What are you singing, goofy? It's not my birthday! It's not your birthday. It's not Grandpa's birthday. Who are you singing to?"

"Too woe," she belted out, pointing at me and giggling. Unfortunately, she had sat in a leaky diaper long enough that her entire outfit needed to be changed, and I would need to do laundry. The work load seemed endless and I couldn't help but sigh as I pulled the dirty mattress pad and crib sheet out, though I'd sworn to sigh less around her. She'd started sighing - or, well, had been sighing since she was an infant, but it had stopped being cute once I realized she had learned it from me and my inability to hide my anxiety.

"How was work?" Charlie asked from the kitchen as I strode past to the laundry room.

I just gave him a look, like _why bother asking_, and set Ava on the floor to play in a laundry basket as I pulled a dry load out, transferred another load over, and started a new load. What was in the dryer had cooled, which meant Charlie could have saved me the effort and folded it before his nap, but I didn't say anything. There wasn't any _point_ in saying something.

In an effort to be nicer, I shrugged and answered after all, "It ended. Things are just so slow . . . it feels like such a waste of my time." The loads traded, I grabbed the back of Ava's dress in one hand and the basket of dry laundry in the other and pulled them both across the floor into the kitchen. One giggled and the other sneered, "_I know you're tired, but there will always be a new load of laundry to do! Ha!"_

"Well, Bells, you know how I feel-"

"I can't take loans out, Dad," I interrupted. "We've talked about- can we just not get into this again? I'm too tired . . ."

"I'm just saying, you aren't happy, and you're doing worse by your daughter by not being happy than if you didn't get a degree."

"Damn me for wanting them both!" I snorted, then looked anxiously at Ava to make sure she hadn't heard. She was more than happy to repeat every word I hadn't thought she'd been listening to. But no, she was too busy happily playing with a plastic grocery bag, enjoying the sound it made when she smashed it between her hands.

Really, I was up for Mother of the Year this year, and the only reason I didn't get it was because of some weirdness with the zoning.

"There would be no harm in waiting until she's in school." He had a point, a terrible awful point that I refused to listen to because I knew just how right he was. I had never been patient - I hadn't even waited until I could legally drink to have a baby, though it _had_ been unintentional - and Ava's school days simultaneously felt so near and yet so far away. There was enough shame in my life; I didn't want my lack of a career and direction to hang over her head, too. What would she do on parent-career day? I'd show up and explain to the class, "Well, I'm kind of just a leech on my dad . . ."

But in order to not take out student loans, I was having to work an insane number of shifts at the diner where both lunch and dinner were slow and upward mobility was nonexistent.

"I feel like such a charity case," I sighed, changing the point. Charlie is frequently a wise man, though, and didn't point out my obvious evasion. "It's like everyone knows, or thinks that I need all this help. Philip and Craig came in for lunch today and left me a twenty-dollar tip on a fourteen-dollar lunch." They were two guys Charlie worked with, and so of course knew I was struggling to pay for the two night classes I could currently afford to take. "I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to take it, but I didn't want to cause a scene by refusing it, and-"

"They're just trying to help, Bells. Everyone here wants you to be happy, and if that means communally funding your education-"

"But I don't want charity, Dad!" He shook his head at my outburst but didn't scold. "I'm doing okay . . . it's only been four months, and I managed to pay for this semester and I'm well on my way to funding next semester, too."

Slipping the last box of cereal on top of the fridge, Charlie just repeated, "They're just trying to help." He left the kitchen, the conversation unresolved and hanging awkwardly in the air. Was I in the wrong to accept donations from people that I hardly knew at all except through my dad? I had been living in Forks for two years now, but only been working for the past four months, and before that I had ventured out of the house as rarely as possible.

"You're doomed, Ava," I sighed, finally taking the plastic bags away from her. She sighed and asked for them back, but accepted when instead I pulled her onto my lap to cover her with kisses. "How about we just build a little cabin in the woods and we'll wile away the time like Hester Prynn and Pearl? Damnit, I should have named your Pearl . . ."

"Okay an' gimme pissa!" she clapped.

"Carrots? Apples?" I offered.

"Pissa!" she cheered.

I sighed and pressed my face on the table in defeat, which she thought was just the funniest thing ever.

* * *

><p>"Bella, I'm off," Charlie waved from the front door. I nodded and waved, following a moment later to make sure the door locked, all while Matt rambled about his thought-provoking classes, his fast-paced internship with Sony, the party he and his buddies had gone to last weekend.<p>

"But what about the check, Matt?" I interrupted when his description of some literature class grew too tedious for my precious time. I was folding clothes, but there were better things I could dedicate my ears to.

He at least had the kindness to sound apologetic as he explained, "I'm working on it, I promise. The internship is just taking up most of my time so I'm not getting to put in many hours at work, and it's not a paid internship, so-"

"Well I'm not being able to put in many hours waiting tables because I've got a daughter to take care and not enough money to pay for childcare," I retorted.

"I thought your dad was helping you with-"

"Do not," I interrupted again, "Put your parenting responsibilities on my father."

The line fell silent for a moment, until he sighed, "I'm sorry. I'm doing the best I can."

"Well try harder. It's hard on all of us, you know, you being so far away. Money won't fix things but it'll make it a little easier."

"I know, Bellyjean." God, how I hated that nickname. "But listen, the good news is, I'll probably be able to make it up there for Thanksgiving!"

"I thought me and Ava were flying down to your mom's."

"I know, but, well, the family decided not to do anything big this year and-" I could hear him squirming on the other end of the line and sighed. I was too tired and this had been going on for too long to bother me much anymore, though.

"I'm not an idiot."

His voice was quiet again, "I know. She's just still getting used to the idea-"

"Ava's eighteen months and not getting any younger, so if you or anyone in your family care to get to know her, it should probably be pretty soon."

"I'm sorry, Bella! You aren't making this any easier, okay? It's hard on me, too. It's not like I _like_ having everyone at war like this. But I said I'd come see you and Ava for Thanksgiving, okay? I'm choosing you two over my family; doesn't that mean anything? I miss you."

"Miss you too," I returned, closing my eyes and pressing a warm onesie to my cheek. The strongest detergent couldn't pull Ava's sweet smell from her clothes, and sometimes that was all that got me through.

"Well listen, I've got to go. Some of us are headed out to the courts and I know you've got a lot to do. Tell Ava I say hello!"

"You could always call while she's awake, you know," I pointed out.

This seemed successful in making him feel guilty, and he huffed, "I'm really busy during the day. I'll try. Good night."

"Night, Matt." I waited for the dial tone, finished folding, and wondered when the last time was that Matt and I had traded "I love you"s at the end of a phone conversation. It seemed like a significant last time, an important marker that should have somehow made itself known to me when it happened so that I wouldn't be caught off guard when it eventually occurred to me that the words felt funny in my mouth when saying it to him. Or not much later on when I realized neither of us was saying it at all.

* * *

><p>Sunday dawned, sunny and actually quite warm. A day like this was mostly unheard of in early November, and since I didn't have work until the evening, and Charlie had the day off, it meant a rarer day still in which we could both do just what we wanted. Charlie set out before dawn to go fishing with his usual crew and I decided that Ava and I should take advantage of the beautiful weather by going for a hike. There were plenty of household chores, and I had a paper to write, and it meant I would be tired at work, but sometimes it's worth it.<p>

"Well, Ava, what are we going to dress you in today?" I made the mistake of asking.

Though I selected an outfit appropriate for the crisp autumn day, Ava pulled out her Tinkerbell dress and chanted, "Tink Tink Tink, I want Tink" until I really had no choice but to pull the dress on over her other clothes. She didn't like the compromise at first, but when I let her put her ballet slippers on, she decided to be amenable. She wouldn't really be walking anyway.

Usually, our good friend Jake went on these hikes with us, carrying her and leading the way since my sense of direction was about as good as Ava's. He was working today, though, and I wasn't willing to lose out on a beautiful day, which meant I would be my own pack mule. Ava was pretty small for her age, but I still packed as little for us as possible before strapping her into the backpack and struggling to hoist it on without any help. Sometimes things like that are the hardest part of being a single parent, really, that you don't have a husband to help you strap on the baby.

But I wasn't a single parent, or not entirely single; I had Matt who was my something in another state and . . . but for practical purposes, I was definitely a single parent.

"Well, it's not going to be a very long hike," I warned Ava as we set out. I was managing now, but I wasn't exactly the most athletic of people and she and the backpack I wore backwards, so it was on my stomach, were going to wear my shoulders down eventually.

"Sing!" she commanded as we set out, diving into the woods behind the house and heading northeast by the compass I wore around my neck. With a compass, how lost could I get?

"No, you sing!" I returned. "Mommy's doing the walking, so you do the singing."

"Sing sing sing!" she repeated. I sighed and began my repertoire, mentally apologizing to the nature I was desecrating with my shrieking voice. Ava was too young to realize just how bad I was, though, and sweetly sang along, continuing even when I would nearly drop out in order to hear her airy voice.

"Pretty," she would call out, pointing when birds flitted among the branches around us. She wanted to touch tree bark and hold dead leaves - though that stopped when I realized she was just crumbling them into my hair. When I occasionally put her down and let her stand on my feet as I walked, holding my hand to give my back a rest, she would collect rocks or fistfuls of grass and hand them up to me to hold on to. She'd been a nature girl from birth, a characteristic I was working on learning for her sake. It wasn't that I despised nature, but no one would think me at home among trees and rocks. Besides my terrible sense of direction, bugs grossed me out, I was constantly paranoid about attacks by wild animals, and my lack of athleticism meant I got tired and just wanted to lay down after not very long.

We stopped for a mid-morning snack, more for my benefit than hers. Apparently giving birth had thrown my body out of whack - go figure - and I had been off-handedly diagnosed as hypoglycemic. It's not as serious as it sounds, but did annoyingly require me to eat protein ever four or five hours or I'd get shaky and light-headed until I eventually passed out, which I'd learned the hard way.

Unfortunately, stopping for snack was all it took to disorient me. Once I'd packed our trash away and boosted Ava back up so we could head home, I glanced at my compass to decide I actually had no idea where we were. It wasn't that the compass stopped working or that I had veered off track, but walking southwest should have kept us on a familiar path bearing marks that we had just walked through. But when I began walking southwest, I didn't recognize anything, not a single rock or tree. I ignored my fears and continued walking southwest by the compass, but I continue to not recognize anything.

"Crap crap crap," I muttered, biting my thumbnail and staring down the compass, willing it to tell me where to go.

"Cap cap cap," Ava repeated, happy as a bird and completely unconcerned that we didn't know where we were. As long as we were outside, it was fine by her.

I pulled my cell phone out because if there was anything Charlie and Jake had beat into my brain, it was: If you get lost in the woods, don't keep wandering because you'll just get more lost. Stay where you are and call for help.

I didn't have a signal. Of course, my stone age cell phone wouldn't get a signal in the middle of the Olympic rainforest. Even if it had, what could have been done, though? Call a search helicopter to scour the treetops for me? The thought was as mortifying as admitting to Jake I had gone hiking without him and gotten horribly lost.

"It's fine," I assured Ava and myself. "I think the highway runs along north of us, so if we get to that I can call someone to come give us a lift." I didn't know what I was talking about. I _thought_ maybe a highway ran north of us, but as already stated, I also didn't know where the hell we were.

Regardless, I started walking north, straining my ears for the sound of the highway. Hearing none, I continued, not thinking logically about the rising elevation until-

"Is that a house?" I saw the house before I saw the drive leading up to it, which if I followed it would no doubt lead me to the highway. But Jake had definitely led us around in these woods before and we had never stumbled across a house, nor had I heard of anyone living so far out and alone like this. By the looks of it, whoever it was had a lot of disposable income: the house was huge, with lots of windows, and looked pretty new.

"Well whoever it is, we won't bother them," I shrugged just as Ava let out a blood-curdling shriek. Not a hungry or tired or angry shriek, but a full-blown panicky, pained shriek.

"What? Ava, what is it?" I demanded, yanking the backpack off as quickly as I could and wrestling her from it. She continued to shriek and cry, waving her arm frantically in the air. It wasn't until I managed to grab her arm and hold it still that I saw the bee stuck there by his stinger planted in her skin, writhing around.

My response was to slap her arm, sending the bee corpse writhing to the ground where I stomped it to kingdom come. God, I hated bugs, and even seeing one on her was enough to make _me _start screaming, though I held it together for her. She was still crying and clutching at her arm, though. I was frantic. I'd never been stung by a bee before, and neither had she. What if she was allergic? It was clearly still hurting her, and I'd heard that the stingers could stay stuck in her skin. How was I supposed to get the stinger out-

"Is everything all right?"

I had been too distracted to hear anyone approach and spun to my feet and clutched my sobbing baby to my chest. A woman stood before me, looking at the pair of us with concern as she repeated her question, but I was momentarily too dumbfounded to reply. She was gorgeous, beautiful in an unearthly way, the very image of the sort of woman that girls like my pretend doesn't actually exist. Long, perfectly waved golden hair, wide, coppery eyes, porcelain skin, an unnatural symmetry to her features. I felt like I should start quoting nineteenth-century sonnets to describe her beauty. She shifted her weight to her other foot and even _that_ was graceful. It sucked.

"Sorry, I, shhh, Ava, it'll be - my daughter got stung by a bee and I don't know what to do," I admitted in a rush, feeling the red creep into my cheeks. The woman's attention wasn't directed at me, though, but at Ava, and so strongly that I felt uncomfortable. Perhaps she had never been around a screaming child before? I was too upset for Ava's sake to be embarrassed.

"Oh," she returned, her eyes widening and then narrowing several times. As if my stress level wasn't high enough, this was almost enough to make me fall to the ground in a full-out spazz. What if we had just wandered into the secret hideaway of a serial killer? She took a step toward us, and my instinct was to take a step back, so I did. She was still staring at Ava, but now her eyes were staying wide, and her face looked so desperately sad that I couldn't help but decide she was pre-apologizing for something horrible she was about to do.

"Rosalie." I spun when a man spoke behind us, a man I had _also_ not heard approach. At first he just stared at the woman, and I couldn't help but watch him, convinced that whatever was going on, he was here to clear things up. Meanwhile, Ava continued to cry and push at her arm until I held her hand away.

"What's wrong with her?" he then asked, finally turning his gaze to me. As soon as he'd broken eye-contact with her, the woman turned abruptly on her hell and stomped angrily into the house.

I glanced between her retreating back and him as I answered, "She got stung by a bee. I- it's still hurting her. I don't know-"

"Is the stinger still in her skin?"

"I don't know." I was desperate and about on the verge of tears myself.

He hesitated, then came closer, but clearly didn't want to touch Ava. If he didn't want to touch her, I certainly didn't want him touching her, but still I pointed to her arm because he seemed to know what he was doing. He slowly reached out to her, but his arm movement pricked my already frazzled nerves and I nearly spun away from him, suddenly not wanting him to touch her.

"Is she allergic?" he asked, but I insisted I didn't know. "If the stinger is still in, you can use a credit card to push it out." Immediately I unzipped the backpack still on my front and began digging through for my wallet, but it was nearly impossible to find it with Ava still sobbing in my other arm.

Without me asking, he stepped forward and stuck his hand in, then pulled out my wallet and took it upon himself to tug out a credit card and hold it out to me, like I was supposed to know what to do from there. If it was up to me, so be it. I crouched so I could balance Ava on my leg and took the card, but hadn't yet realized I was shaking as bad as she was.

I could see him deliberating and feel the uncertainty oozing from him, but finally he crouched down and held his hand out for the card back, "Here. My dad's a doctor. I'm . . . actually pretty good at this." So I gave him the card and rubbed Ava's back and kissed her face as her took her arm in one hand and pressed the card along her skin. Sure enough, I saw the stinger and watched it get forced out by the pressure.

As soon as he'd touched her arm, Ava had stopped crying, though she continued to sniffle pathetically into my neck. Her relaxing helped me to relax, and I could pay a bit more attention to this stranger I was letting practically operate on my daughter. He seemed younger than the woman, though every bit as beautiful in a slightly more masculine way. His eyes were the same topaz-ish color, leading me to believe they were related, but what did I know?

"Sorry, did you say something?" I asked. He gave me a surprised look and shook his head. "Oh, sorry, I thought your lips moved." Again, he shook his head.

At the same instant, though, the woman returned, a bottle of gel Benadryl in hand, which she handed quietly to him without saying a word, like he was a surgeon and she his practiced assistant. He rubbed some on, then handed me the bottle.

"You can keep it," he said. "If she gets a fever or the sting gets worse, or if she gets hives, you should take her to the emergency room. She looks like she's okay, though."

"Thank you," I stammered as he put the card back in the wallet and the wallet in the backpack and waited until I'd slipped the bottle in to zip it up for me. "I appreciate it-"

"Are you lost?" the woman asked, her eyes flickering between me and Ava.

I gave a pathetic smile and nodded, "Yeah. I have a compass but I guess we got turned around somehow. Will that driveway take us back down to the highway?"

"Yes," the guy said at the same time the woman asked, "Do you live far?"

"I- I don't know. I live with my dad, Chief Swan?" I had meant for that to sound more impressive, just in case they were crazy or dangerous.

The man shook his head, though I didn't know what at, and the woman frowned at him. He then pointed to the driveway, "The driveway will lead you to the highway. Can you call someone to come get you? It would be a long walk."

"Yeah, I- shit," I muttered, seeing, as I pulled my phone from my pocket, that I still didn't have service.

The woman opened her mouth to speak, but the guy handed me his cell phone before she could say whatever she had intended to say. Of course, I didn't have anyone's number memorized and had to awkwardly juggle both phones and Ava, but neither person moved to help me.

Fortunately, Charlie answered, "Chief Swan, who is this?"

"Hey, Dad, it's me. I kind of . . . got lost," I mumbled. "I'm okay. Or, well, Ava got stung by a bee, but some people helped us, but apparently we're a long way off. Could you just come get us?"

"Tell him drive north of Forks on 101 about a mile and a half. You'll be on the right side of the road," the guy instructed without my having asked. I relayed this to Charlie, who said he'd be by in about ten minutes and that I was lucky he'd just walked through the door or it would have taken him much longer . . . Lectures, but I knew I'd probably get worse from Jake anyway. He'd think I was an absolute idiot for going hiking along, and he was probably right.

"Thanks again," I said, handing the guy his phone back. "I guess I'm going to go wait . . ." He simply nodded and the woman gave me a forced smile as I carried Ava and strolled down the long, winding driveway. I felt Ava wave over my shoulder but didn't bother looking to see if they'd waved back. What weird and sort of scary people.

It was a long enough walk down that we hardly had to wait long at all for Charlie to pull over. I buckled Ava into her car seat in the back, then slipped into the passenger's side, glad he had at least spared me showing up in his cop car.

"You don't have to say anything," I sighed as he pulled a U-turn and headed back to town. "I know, it was stupid to go hiking like that in a forest I don't know, and even stupider to take Ava with me, and I'm lucky nothing worse happened and-"

"I think that's the new doctor's place," he interrupted, not commenting on what I'd been saying. It was an area Charlie had always been better in than my mom: not pouring salt in an acknowledged wound. "Doctor . . . Culler or Collin, something like that. I met him the other day. Seems like a good guy. Everyone at the hospital says he's great. He's got a bunch of kids. Some of them are about your age." I shrugged, not caring, though I supposed those were the two people I had just met. Well, obviously, the guy had said his dad was a doctor. "I just mean I know there aren't a lot of people your age around here. It might be good to hang out with some kids your own age."

I sighed and shook my head, "Dad, I stopped being a kid when I got pregnant. I don't have time for friends. There are plenty of people my age in my classes, too, but I'm not really interested in making friends."

"Okay," he shrugged, reiterating, as he always did when he disagreed but didn't have anything else to say on the matter, "I just thought it would do you some good."


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

I only worked on two modes: Sleep mode and Stress mode. Every waking moment was spent in class, doing homework, working, or trying to squeeze enough love into my time with Ava to keep her from growing up a social reject. Not that being a social reject was the worst thing that could happen - I was doing just fine, after all. But I didn't want her repeating my life.

Jake brought Sue Clearwater over in the afternoon. She was my back-up babysitter if Charlie couldn't build his shifts around my work and class schedule, and she was great with Ava, though it did mean more driving than I would have preferred, since she lived out on the Res like Jake.

"What's this about you getting lost in the forest?" he demanded as soon as his feet touched the driveway, before I had even opeend the front door to welcome them in. When I did manage to get the door open, Sue was shaking her head as Jacob shoved past me to scoop Ava up. He was as confident with her as I someday hoped to be, and I'd never understood where his casualness with small children came from since he was the youngest in his family. I guess just from being part of a close-knit community, maybe.

"Who told you about that?" I asked after welcoming Sue in and accepting her hug.

"Nature," he teased. "The trees told me about some pale-faced giraffe stomping around the vegetation and getting lost on the mountains."

"Oh, leave the poor girl alone," Sue scolded, taking Ava from him. Ava, thrilled to see both of them, squealed and clapped her hands independently of each other - her jazz fingers, as Jake referred to them as - the same gripping motion to use to wave hello and goodbye. "How are you Bella?"

"Frazzled, per usual," I sighed. "Work was slow, the house is a mess, and I still have to finish a short essay that's due in class-"

"Well you'll have time for it when you're dead so stop worrying so much," Jake retorted, but instantly winced, as did I. Sue's husband had only died six months before and, though she seemed to me to be doing just fine, death was understandably a taboo topic around her.

To change the subject quickly, I shrugged, "Well, at least once I don't have a small child, I guess. Thank you for coming over, Sue."

"Of course, Bella. There's nothing I enjoy more than spending an evening with my favorite little girl."

"Even though she's a pale-face?" Jake teased, running up and poking Ava in the sides until she squirmed and shrieked with laughter.

Sue batted him away and insisted, "She's only part pale-face. She's one of us or my name isn't Clearwater." I appreciated the gesture and took the opportunity of their bickering to check and make sure I had everything I needed for my five hours straight of classes. It wouldn't have been the first time I'd made it to class without my books or backpack or, a couple times, even my purse. There was just so much to remember and I looked forward to Christmas break when I'd at least not have to worry about classes and homework.

I hugged and kissed Ava until she'd lost interest in me and wanted to play with Sue, and followed Jake out.

"Thanks for bringing her over. I can bring her back tonight," I offered. I'll probably get back around ten-"

"No way," he argued, opening my car door for me and closing it after I'd slid in. "You'll be tired, and I don't mind the drive. I'll be here to get Sue at ten."

I sighed, "Thanks, Jake. You're a lifesaver."

"Oh, I know it."

"But your ego knows no bounds."

He laughed, knocked on the top of my car, then jogged over to his own clunky truck. Initially Charlie had meant to buy it for me, but when the truth had come out that I was moving up here to have a baby, he'd decided to go with something much blander and safer. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't a big deal, but I really would have liked a truck. I'd be so big and powerful perched up behind that wheel. Instead, my car smelled like baby vomit and cheetos.

I made it to campus early enough to wrap my paper up in the library, but not with enough time to proof read it or I'd be late, and the professor was a stickler for tardies and absences. I'd already used up my grace tardies and any more counted in complete absences; enough absences would force me to fail the course and I'd be out the couple thousand dollars I could already not afford for the course. So I printed without getting a chance to notice I'd misspelled my own name at the top until I scanned over it moments later in class - too late to do anything except hand correct it and add it to the stack on the professor's desk.

As this was my first semester, I was only enrolled in two basic courses: a comparative literature course and European history. This meant dense lectures, lots of outside reading, and an unending stream of short and long papers. I couldn't fathom how people took four courses at once, even those my age without kids. The concept of a typical college lifestyle eluded me; I didn't understand how people could have both a passing report card and a social life. It already took me multiple cups of coffee to get through class, the caffeine of which would wake me up but also triggered the shakes.

It wasn't until my fifteen minute break between classes that I realized I'd forgotten my lunch. I only had time to grab something from the vending machines and, just my luck, they didn't appear to have been stocked in a few days. Nothing with sugar or protein, only pretzels and sugar-free gum. I took the pretzels regardless and ripped the back open as I hurried to my next class, dropping several in my frantic shoving of pretzels into my mouth. Even once I'd collapsed into my seat at the back of class, on time and even seated before the professor had stepped through the door, I continued to devour the bag as though I hadn't eaten anything in a week. Before we'd figured out what the hypoglycemia was, I'd woken up in the middle of the night feeling like I was dying and unable to even consider that maybe I should call my dad for help until I'd devoured almost a full box of Cheerios and half a box of soy milk. I'd eaten so much during early episodes that I'd puked, just trying to stop feeling like I'd lost control of my own body.

The girl seated in front of me turned around to give me a stare I wasn't in a frame of mind to understand, but I tried to chomp the pretzels more quietly. I soon ran out anyway, since my eighty cents weren't worth many pretzels according to Hanover. Still frantically hungry, I dumped the salt into my hand and flung it into my mouth, eager to get every last crumb. All my food gone but my body levels not quite back to normal, I lay my head down on my arms, closed my eyes, and willed my blood sugar to get its shit together.

When the professor began lecturing, I propped my head up and forced myself to focus on his words. I don't know for sure how long I made it, but it couldn't have been that long before the words turning into a monotonous, watery drone that I couldn't quite make sense of, and the paintings projected on the white board became fuzzy abstracts.

I decided that maybe splashing some water on my face would help, and quickly pushed myself from the desk and stumbled out the door. If something was said to me, I was too light-headed to notice, hell-bent on making it to the water fountain to get a drink. I felt my shoulders rising to the ceiling as a cool sweat broke out on my forehead and neck. My hands had finally stopped shaking, but this was only a good thing in certain contexts - and not this one. The blood rushed to my ears, I reached my hand out for to push the button on the water fountain.

It's difficult to explain fainting to anyone who's never fainted before. Your brain really does just totally shut off. It's like you're watching a movie and then you fall asleep and then wake up without realizing you'd fallen asleep but you realize you don't understand what's going on in the movie. And, as is usually my luck, you probably have a really bad headache because I'm never lying down when I faint.

At first I was completely confused as to where I was and what was going on. The first thing you become aware of after passing out is simply that you exist, and this is an overwhelming realization enough on its own. Then gradually you notice that your back is cold, and then you understand that it's cold because you're lying on the ground. Then you feel wet stuff on your face and wonder if it's blood, but then it becomes clear that someone is actually tossing cold water on your face. Your eyes remember that they can actually focus to make everything a little less fuzzy and you see the figure of a man, a face that seems stoic and unphased and slightly familiar. Then finally sound returns in a rush of warmth at your ears and you hear the girl that sits in front of you in class asking if you're okay.

I groaned and tried to push myself up the girl's hands were on my shoulders and my ears were catching up with real time enough to gather that she said, "No, stay down another minute."

"I'm hypoglycemic," I explained.

"That was pretty obvious," she laughed. I tried to focus on her face; did I know her? Her hair was short, black, spiked. Everything about her seemed friendly and cheerful and completely out of place in the sterile hallways of Port Angeles Community College. She belonged in some art school in New England, not boring rainy Washington. She might be a fairy for all I knew.

The other person had stopped splashing water on my face, but my neck was still cold. When I brought my hands up to investigate, I found the girl's hands pressed against my sweaty skin; she instantly removed them, though, and helped me sit up.

"There, all better?" she asked.

I nodded but squinted my eyes against the lights as my head swam in an attempt to stabilize it. Not to mention, my forehead was throbbing. When I pressed against it, I jumped at the sharp pain.

"Your face hit the water fountain," the guy said. "I didn't catch you in time. Sorry." He didn't seem that apologetic.

"No, no, it's fine. Thanks for . . ." I motioned to the water fountain. He nodded and stood up when I reached for the water fountain to pull myself to my feet. My fingers slipped off the cool metal, but the girl's hand was on my back and she helped me stand.

"Thanks." They both watched me expectantly, maybe waiting for me to hit the floor again, but blacking out somehow always reset my body and afterwards my blood sugar was fine. So after gently running my fingers along the knot forming on my forehead, and taking a step to make sure I was steady on my feet again - well, close enough - I nodded to them, "Thanks again. I'll just head back to class now- oh! You're that doctor's son that helped me- Sorry, I'm not making sense." I took a second to clear my head and they waited patiently until I started again, "You helped when my daughter got stung by a bee."

"Yes."

"I don't even know your name."

There was an awkward silence until the girl offered, "That's Edward. He's a bit of a social buffoon, so pardon his manners. I'm Alice."

"Bella," I returned, shaking her hand. Trying to help Edward there relax a bit, I tried to joke, "You'll have to stop rescuing me and my progeny like this - we aren't always damsels in distress."

"Okay."

Alice rolled her eyes, "Oh, stop it. Just stand here with her and I'll handle everything. I'll get our things, Bella, and we'll give you a ride home. You don't live that far from us-"

"Oh, I can't really afford to miss class."

"Professor Dungee won't even notice we're gone, I promise." That said, she was gone and Edward and I were left awkwardly standing together in the hallway.

"She's your sister?" I asked, trying to be nice since they were really helping me - I should argue some more.

"Yes."

"It's nice of both of you to keep helping me out like this-"

"She has a lot of sins to atone for," he interrupted, crossing his arms and looking the opposite direction down the hall.

"But not you, huh?"

He stayed quiet; I felt awkward. The seconds ticked by until Alice reappeared, both our stuff in her arms.

She thrust mine towards Edward and said, "You suck at this. You drive her car and she'll ride with me in yours."

"You really don't need to give me a ride home," I insisted, following them out to the parking lot. "I'm fine to drive and-"

"Bella," she interrupted me, facing me again. "Sometimes I get these . . . these feelings." Edward coughed and plowed past us, digging the keys from the front of my backpack like he'd known where they were all along. "It's kind of hard to explain. But I just have a feeling that you are going to positively impact my life."

"Oh." What do you say to that? Other than, _ah, you're crazy, that's why you're being so nice to a social outcast like me_. Instead I shrugged, "Well I'd hate to rob you of my positive impact . . . I guess . . ."

She gave me a bright grin and pointed to the correct car, then slid in and unlocked my door. Edward was making a beeline straight for my car, which was creepy all on its own because how did he know? All I could guess was that he'd seen me pull in earlier - and then what, stalked me until I passed out in the hall?

I joined Alice inside, kind of overwhelmed by the car. A Volvo, silver, brand new judging by the condition. Well, not everyone my age struggled so badly with money, but why wouldn't anyone with money be at a much bigger, much better school?

Alice pulled out and Edward fell in line behind us as we drove back to Forks. I wasn't sure where to start, but felt like I needed to make conversation.

So I asked, "You guys just moved here?"

"Yep. Carlisle - he's our foster dad - is working at the hospital."

"Yeah, my dad mentioned that. How many of you are there?"

She gave me a quick glance, then laughed, "Oh, of us Cullens? Five of us kids, and then Carlisle and Esme. You met Rosalie, right?"

"The blonde woman? Yeah."

"We moved here from New York." I hadn't asked, but that was fine. I tried to think of something else worth saying but all I came up with was, "So how am I supposed to positively influence your life exactly?"

She passed a slow-moving car on the one-lane freeway so quickly that I was thrown around my seat; she didn't notice and, waving her hand in the air, assured me, "I wasn't being serious. Edward just has no patience for my good deeds, and I like to help people when I can. It's sort of a hobby of mine, I guess."

"What else do you do? Like, charity work?"

"Oh, it's usually totally behind the scenes stuff. If I give examples, it sort of ruins the point of the Good Samaritan, though, so you'll just have to take my word for it."

"Oh, okay. Sure. Things like leaving wreaths on people's door at Christmas, stuff like that, I'd imagine."

"Yes," she laughed. "Stuff like that. Haven't you just ever thought how much better this world would be if people randomly did nice things for each other without expecting anything back?"

I shrugged, "I guess I spend more time wishing people would just follow through on the things they _say_ they're going to do."

"Do you have a very dramatic life?"

It was my turn to laugh, "You sound like you wish you did? I don't know that mine's dramatic. I just . . . I mean, I have a baby."

"And?"

"And, well, babies have daddies and cost money and take up time and that makes things complicated."

"But the babies themselves aren't complicated?" she asked. Her question was weird, not in and of itself but the way in which she asked it, like babies were some foreign concept to her and she was really interested in the answer.

"No, I guess babies in and of themselves aren't complicated. You either love them or you don't. And before you ask, yes, I love mine." She laughed again, apparently enjoying every minute of this drive.

"What's her name?"

"Ava."

"Interesting."

"Is it?"

"Oh, not particularly, I suppose. I think everything is interesting. Do you call her peanut?"

"No," I laughed. "Why?"

Alice shrugged, "I don't know. I'm not very interested in babies myself, but I imagine if I spent time around one, I'd call it peanut, if the nickname fit."

I was out of things to say. She seemed to be, too, and we spent the rest of the ride in silence. She was just so casual and friendly; I envied that. I wanted to be like that, comfortable talking to anyone like I'd known them forever.

Edward beat us to my house, which was creepy again. I didn't have time to dwell on just how creepy it was, though, because Jacob and Sue were standing out on the porch looking concerned, probably as to why some strange guy had shown up in my car.

"Oh," Alice said under her breath, but half the time I didn't know what she was talking about so I didn't bother asking what she was "oh"ing about.

Instead, as soon as she pulled up to the curb, I got out and called to Sue and Jake, "I'm fine. Just passed out at school, so Alice and Edward gave me a ride home." Sue stayed on the porch, but Jake practically ran to my side and grabbed my arm.

"Come inside. Are you okay?"

"I just said I'm fine. I just passed out and hit my head." Alice had moved to the passenger's seat and Edward was getting in; they seemed in a hurry to get home, but I didn't want them to be embarrassed about being _nice_ so I waved and called back, "Thanks again for the ride." Alice forced a smile and waved back while Edward ignored me completely and took off down the street.

"How well do you know them, Bella?" Jake demanded, dragging me towards the house. I pushed at him and glared.

"Let go! Geez, what's your problem? Not at all, really; I've only run into them twice now. Well, Alice only once. Edward twice, but he's so unfriendly."

Once I was on the porch, Jake paused to glance down the street, before letting out a deep breath and shrugging, "Well, that's good I guess. You should be careful who you accept rides from, though, Bella. Not everyone you meet is safe."

"I know," I admitted, his words hitting home as I suddenly realized I had basically accepted a ride from practical strangers. Just because they were kids of the local doctor didn't mean they were safe! My body had a belated spazz and a series of shivers ran up and down my back. My survival instincts retroactively kicked in and I wanted to run and hide under the covers on my mom's bed. Alice was so nice I had temporarily forgotten how creepy they all were. To appease Jake and me both, I insisted, "It won't happen again. They're really pretty creepy."

"Yeah, they are."

"You know them?"

"No," he answered. "I mean, just in passing, like you. They're strange though, that's for sure. You've got a kid, Bella, you of all people should be careful."

"And you of all people shouldn't be lecturing me," I retorted, but gave him a friendly smile. He was always lecturing me and, as I'd learned long ago, his lectures were usually right. For someone overall pretty immature, he was good with the advice stuff. "Now get Sue home before you start breaking your curfew."

"I'm eighteen! I don't have a curfew, jerk."

Sue, who had remained quiet through all this, gathered her purse and, patting my arm reiterated, "From an older mother, Bella, do be careful. You need to be careful who you are inviting into your life."

"I know, Sue. Thanks again for watching Ava. You got the envelope?" She nodded and followed Jacob out to his car and I watched them disappear from the front porch.

As usual, the envelope with money was still sitting on the kitchen table. Alice spoke - and I acted - like there were no good people in the world, but there definitely were. The real challenge was just figuring out which ones were good and which ones were better to avoid. I'd never really been good at that and, despite Jake's warnings, didn't really know how to change that any more than how to alter my impeccably wrong sense of navigation.


	4. Chapter 3

_AN: No getting around it. I suck. Here's a really long chapter to make up for it._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three<strong>

The check had arrived. Eight days late, but at least it had arrived. I felt my shoulders relax as I brought in the mail, tapping that particular envelope on my chin. Ava stood in the playpen, her arms held out to me as she bellowed for me to pick her up. I pulled her up onto my hip and then propped her on my thigh, my foot on one of the kitchen chairs as I ripped open the envelope.

One hundred dollars. One hundred measly dollars for two months of diapers, of food, of toys, of check ups and clothes and shoes because somehow Ava only ended the day with one shoe. She'd left a trail of shoes all over the greater Seattle area and my desire for my daughter to wear matching shoes was waning.

Especially if her dad was only going to send me one hundred frigging dollars.

Slamming the check down, I yanked the phone from its cradle on the wall and dialed.

"Uh-oh," Ava observed, reaching up to tap me on the cheek. "Uh-oh, uh-oh."

"Uh-oh indeed," I agreed. The call rolled to voicemail on the second ring; Matt was too big of an idiot to even try to make it look he hadn't just rejected my call.

_"Yo, you got the one and only Matt! I'm too busy doing something important right now, so leave a message and I will hit you back if your reasons are compelling. Yo . . . go!"_

"Matthew Francis, pick up your damn phone," I growled. "You know exactly why I'm calling. One hundred dollars! What are you thinking? How am I supposed to raise a child on . . . what, like ten dollars a week? Are you kidding me? That was supposed to be a three-hundred dollar check! You promised us that much. What, did you buy some new basketball shoes? Your _daughter_ needs the money, Matt. You have a _child_. It's time for you to stop being such a child yourself and contribute _something_ to her upbringing."

I slammed the phone down and sighed. Ava sighed. I sighed because she was sighing.

Only minutes later, the phone rang.

Before I could even start yelling, Matt assured me, "I have the rest of the money in cash in my hand right now. I swear, Bella. I'm going down to the bank right now and I'll have the check in the mail by this evening. I just didn't have it at the time but I wanted to send you _something._ And I have the money from donating plasma this week I'll add in just for . . . for a late fee. Buy Ava a new toy or something. Okay?" I banged my head gently against the wall while Ava did her jazz hands. "I promise I'll make this right." Without a word, I hung up the phone.

The greatest thing about Matt was that he always came through at the last minute. The worst thing about Matt was that he never came through until the last minute.

"I love you, you love me," Ava sang, making her hands 'talk' to each other. Then she kissed my cheeks with her hands, a stupid little game I'd come up with when she was a baby and I was trying to get her stop crying.

"I love you I love you I love you," I returned, suddenly kissing her all over her face. She squealed and squirmed.

Why couldn't everything just . . . _work_?

* * *

><p>I arrived at the diner two minutes before my lunch shift, which was good as far as my timing went. Once upon a time I'd been compulsively early, but now a mixture of wanting to spend every minute I could with Ava and having to work with other people's schedules meant I had to be content with being on time, if I was lucky. Charlie had taken his sweet time getting home from work, so I barely had time to grab my apron from the dryer and run back for my no-slip shoes that smelled like coffee and fries from the back porch before diving into my car.<p>

Fortunately - or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it - the diner was mostly empty. All four people of the breakfast "rush" had cleared out and two of the openers had been sent home, leaving only one poor waitress to handle rolling silverware and restocking sugar caddies all by herself. She glanced up as I entered with all the warmth I expected, her eyes darting next to the clock over the door. But I wasn't late, so there was nothing she could say.

Most of my co-workers hated working with me. I knew that. I was so desperate for money that I sharked more tables than I could handle, wound up in the weeds, and then have to run around, red-faced and frantic, until someone did some favors and refilled drinks or delivered food for me. This wasn't usually much of a problem for the lunch shift, which only ever got hectic on the weekends, but I made up for the lull by dropping stuff and ringing things up wrong. I was a mess of a waitress but no one had the heart to fire me because I was Chief Swan's daughter and because I tried so damn hard. I really did.

Because Jessica had been there longer, she got the privilege of "catching me up," or telling me what to do. Of course she set me to the menial tasks, filling salt and pepper shakers and rolling even more silverware. This left her to seat the first table in her own section, even though she already had a table and she still lived with her parents so it's not like she needed the money so badly anyway. Sure, she was saving up before her first semester at USC the next semester, but I had a baby to feed!

When I heard the door open again, I was just about to launch myself through the window to stab Jessica and steal all the tables when she called into the back, "Bella, you have a request." I could hear the annoyance in her voice, because who in their right mind would request me, other than my dad? But Jessica was only ever sunshine around my dad.

I retied the apron around my waist and peeked out through the window in the kitchen door, curious to see who would request me, and immediately recognized the spiky black head. Instantly my thoughts turned to Jacob and Sue's warning.

But at the same time . . . I mean, Alice was a bit strange, but she was nice. Nicer to me than anyone else my age had been since I'd moved here. And anyway, she was a customer now, which meant I had a basic service to provide. I had every reason to be polite. Being nice back to her didn't mean I was inviting her into my home to bathe in the blood of my child or anything.

Pad in hand, I approached the table where Alice sat alone, already spreading her books out.

"Hey . . . Hi, Alice."

"Bella!" she beamed at me.

There was an awkward pause before I remembered what I was supposed to do and asked, "So, can I get you something to drink? Are you ready to order of do you need a few minutes?"

"Well for right now can I just get a water and a coke? Edward should be here soon. I brought our group project to work on with you."

I was writing down 'coke,' so it took me a second to understand what she'd said, and ask, "What group project?"

"The one Dungee assigned after we'd left."

I gasped, "So he knew-"

"No way. I signed the three of us up as a group as I was leaving. He just thinks we were eager to all work together."

"But how did you even know he was going to assign a project?" With a sigh, I guessed, "Did I doze off in class and miss something? I try so hard to stay awake but sometimes I just haven't slept much and-"

"Don't worry about it, Bella. Edward and I have it all together. Edward offered for he and I to do the project all on our own."

"No, I couldn't let you guys do that. I want to earn my grades-"

"I thought you'd say that," she smiled. "That's why I thought we'd get our work done here, so you can help as you walk by and not take time away from Peanut."

I was shocked at the generosity. Obviously it wasn't totally ideal since I'd like to be a better group partner than this shift would allow if things picked up. But I could really use the leg up that this could give my grade. Wasn't I entitled to catch a break every once in a while?

"Besides, Edward loves doing the leg work. Don't you, Edward?"

I hadn't notice him sneak in behind me. He slid past me into the booth, somehow managing to not bump me at all even though I was _right there_.

"As long as we're not having study parties at each other's houses," he grumbled. Always grumbly. I wondered if he ever smiled about anything; he always seemed so serious.

"Okay, well, do you guys want anything to eat or drink-"

"Coke, water," Edward nodded, not even bothering to look at me. He'd already buried his nose in one of the books Alice had spread out; I turned my head to try and get a look at it, which clearly bothered him.

"What's the project on?"

"We have to make a large map of what Europe looked like in our time period and make a timeline for each territory. Our timeperiod is the 1400s."

"Sounds . . ."

"Don't worry about it," Alice assured me, patting my hand. "History is sort of our _thing._"

The shift continued to be so slow that Jessica ran out of inane jobs for me to do. For over an hour, we didn't have a single table other than Alice and Edward and even Jessica grew bored and took to playing some game on her phone. I sat in the booth with Alice and Edward, copying dates. I had decent handwriting, whereas Edward's was remarkably scratchy and Alice's almost as swirly as a junior high girl's. Edward was an excellent artist, though, and seemed a little less grumpy when Alice ordered him to draw the map.

Eventually two tables came in at the same time and I used the minute it took Jessica to put her phone away to nab one of the groups, a party of two elderly women. Elderly women always knew my dad and always thought it was adorable how much I looked like him and always left me mediocre but acceptable tips. I regretted I'd be able to help less on the project, but somehow Edward and Alice seemed to work faster when I wasn't around. By the end of my shift at five, they hadn't moved from the table once, had barely touched their drinks, but the project was almost done.

"You can color the map," Edward said as I brought them their check. I felt bad charging them for the two cokes but Jessica would make sure they were accounted for and if I paid for them out of pocket, I'd negate my paltry earnings for the day. They didn't seem bothered by it, though, and Edward tossed a credit card onto the table as he pointed to the maps. Alice picked the card up and handed it to me, giving him a look.

Even as I ran the credit card, Jessica pressed, "You're charging them for the sodas, right? No freebies for friends here-"

"Obvs!" I assured her with the most sarcastic smile and imitation of her I could manage.

Back at the booth, I set the card and receipts down with a pen. They'd cleaned their work stuff and piled the straw wrappers together so that the table was basically already clean.

"Okay, well, if you don't mind coloring the maps, Bella, we'll tidy up the time lines and that'll be the end of it!"

"Great," Edward mumbled, rising from the table and heading out without waiting for his foster sister.

"You guys really don't waste time, huh?" I asked Alice when she just watched him go and rolled her eyes. What had sounded like a huge project to me had been accomplished in one shift other than a bit of coloring I could easily do while I made dinner. I'd really lucked out and didn't quite know how to thank Alice. So I said simply, "Anyway, thanks."

"You don't have to thank me, Bella," she assured me. "It was just a school project. I'll see you at class!"

I watched out the window as she got into the passenger's seat of Edward's car. He sat behind the wheel waiting for her, looking every bit the petulant child, and took off before she'd even buckled her seatbelt. I didn't know what his problem was but clearly his foster parents had decided to take in one of those really troubled kids. Rather than offending or even annoying me, it just made me sad for him. I was sure he had his reasons for being the way he was. After all, good things never landed kids in the foster care system.

I pulled the signed receipt up and took it to enter into the computer. Not until I was typing them in did I look at the numbers. A $40 tip onto top of $5 worth of sodas. Atonement for sins? Was I just so pathetic that even a trouble teen took pity on me? Or was Edward just trying to be nice? Was there a genuinely nice guy somewhere underneath all the surliness?

Or maybe I was overthinking it all and Alice had made him leave the tip. I refused to feel pathetic about it and silently gloated that I'd made more than Jessica, even though her shift had been longer.

* * *

><p>It felt like I'd just gone grocery shopping, but when I got home from my comparative literature class Thursday evening, I discovered we were out of milk, eggs, apples, bananas, bagels, bread, peanut butter, toilet paper, sponges and Goldfish -that is, every essential grocery item other than diapers. Dad had earned the evening free of childcare duties by watching Ava while I was in class and, anyway, it was good to get Ava out of the house, even for something as trivial as a trip to the grocery store, so off we went.<p>

The store was relatively quiet. I'd once made the mistake of shopping on a Saturday when 75 % of the residents of Forks purchased their food. I would definitely never make _that _mistake again. But a Thursday evening trip meant we had plenty of time to idle along and more than enough space to push the cart without bumping into anyone.

The frozen foods section was where I first got the feeling that we were being followed. As I'm sure is obvious by this point, though, I'm occasionally inexplicably paranoid and have somewhat learned to squelch the unsettled feeling in my stomach and smooth down the hairs rising on the back of my neck. I subtly glanced around as I picked Ava's stuffed giraffe from the floor - Bebe ranked before both myself and Charlie on the totem pole of irreplaceable things in the house. The only other person on the aisle with us was a middle-aged brunette woman who was clearly more interested in the nutritional information on a box of Toaster Strudels than in me.

We moved onto the junk food aisle where I tossed in two of those big gallon cartons of Goldfish. While they were supposed to be exclusively an Ava snack, I had made many a meal of handfuls of them and I had a sneaking suspicion Charlie was doing the same.

I spun suddenly in the hopes of surprising whoever was following us, but there was no one there and I just looked like an idiot.

"I'm losing my mind," I whispered to Ava. "Don't you think?"

"I say . . . no!" she answered. Jacob had taught her this phrase, along with holding up one finger in the air as she said it.

"Thanks, baby."

"Yes!"

"Yes, I'm losing my mind?"

"No!"

"Oh, so I've just already lost it."

"Yes!" I yanked her shirt up to blow on her stomach, which made her squeal with laughter a bit too loudly. My fault. I shrugged somewhat apologetically at the older man who looked over at us from choosing his off-brand salsa.

We moved to the next aisle to grab sponges, which I let Ava hold because she enjoyed just mindlessly squeezing them and listening to the wrapper crinkle. As we rounded the corner to the next aisle, I thought I heard footsteps behind us, footsteps that stopped when we did. But we were in a _grocery store_, so of course I heard footsteps. I tried to remind myself that I was a calm, rational person who shouldn't get freaked out just because there were other people walking around the grocery store, some of which might even be staring at me trying to decide if Ava was my sister or my daughter.

I grabbed the biggest jar of peanut butter (36 whole ounces!) and an equally large jar of grape jelly, even though we weren't quite out yet because it's just one of those things you should make sure you never run out of when you've got a toddler. As I set them in the cart, Ava giggled and waved. I waved back at her until I realized she wasn't waving at me, she was waving at someone behind me.

I spun around and there was no one there.

Then a voice beside the cart greeted, "Hi."

I spun again, getting somewhat dizzy by this point and nearly cracking my wrist on the handle of the cart. It was the blond girl, Alice and Edward's sister . . . I couldn't remember her name.

She looked uncertain of herself and didn't exude the confidence and anger she had the only time I'd seen her before. Her eyes kept flitting between Ava and myself, like she was waiting for one of us to say something.

So I replied, "Hi." A lengthy pause during which she just continued to stand there awkwardly gave me the confidence eventually to ask, 'Were you following me around the store?"

"I didn't mean to frighten you, I only wanted to say hello," she answered in one rushed breath. It sounded like she was reciting lines off of a teleprompter and I got that urge again to shield Ava from her. She stared almost blankly at me for another second, then gaped instead at Ava. Her expression softened. "Her name is Ava?" I nodded. "She's . . . beautiful."

"Thanks." Another uncomfortable silence.

"I'm sorry. I'm being creepy," she suddenly apologized, seeming almost panicked at the realization. She still spoke with uncertainty, though, like she was just waiting for me to push her away or start yelling. Each phrase came out sounding like a question, like she was constantly checking whether it was okay for her to be talking to me. "I'm Rosalie. You have class with my brother and sister, and we met-"

"Right, I remember. Thanks for your help."

"Of course." Desperate. That's what she seemed like, I realized, like she was desperate for my permission to be here, desperate to please me but also desperate just to watch Ava. Weird was an understatement.

Cautiously, I asked, "Are you okay?"

"I can't have children," she blurted out. I was stunned into a deeper silence. Her face clearly showed distress and I worried she was going to start crying. My instinct when anyone cried was to run away. I also was at a loss as to what an appropriate response was because here I was with my unintentional child and there she was with no child when she clearly desperately wanted one.

"I'm sorry," I offered.

"We move a lot, so we don't really get to form friendships and especially not with anyone with children and there aren't any babies in the family so . . . I've never stood so close to a baby before." She wanted to pick Ava up. I knew she did. I could see the pleading in her eyes but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't let this crazed girl hold Ava because I was secretly terrified she was going to try and kidnap her. She didn't ask to pick her up, though, and I certainly didn't offer.

"I'm sorry. I know I sound crazy." She tried to laugh and so did I to make her feel better. Gone were the long pauses; now she talked quickly and animatedly, determined to convince me of the awesomeness of her sudden idea. "Maybe . . . maybe we could be friends and then sometimes I could babysit for you. You wouldn't even have to pay me. You don't have to answer - I know you would need to get to know me more first, especially after I just told you I have no experience whatsoever. I've read a lot of books, but I know that's not the same."

"I wish I'd read some books," I admitted, not sure what else to say. This made her face light up - perhaps she thought I was honestly considering it? Or maybe she just appreciated that I wasn't running away screaming, clutching my child to my chest.

She continued, still hesitantly, almost submissively, "If you feel like it, I'm having a tea party this weekend. Dress up a little, eat dainty foods, play some lawn games. I know it sounds silly but-"

"No, it sounds nice." Shit, what was I saying? I just felt so bad for her. No one that beautiful should feel so awkward.

"I'd love it if you and Ava came. You can bring your dad too, if you want. I don't know which of the boys will stay - sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get them to dress up."

I nodded and commiserated, "Yeah, good luck getting my dad to wear anything but plaid." Had I just inadvertently agreed to go? She seemed to think so judging by her suddenly radiant smile.

"It's on Sunday. I'll send you an invitation." An invitation meant I could still bail! I nodded that this was fine, because there wasn't any harm in receiving an invitation. My faux-acceptance gave her new confidence and she beamed at me as she explained, "I'd better get shopping. There's a lot to do before the party. See you Sunday, Bella. Ava." Her gaze lingered on Ava long enough to almost be overwhelmingly creepy again, then she smiled at me and disappeared.

I didn't get the sense of being followed the rest of the shopping trip which meant I was completely right that Rosalie had stalked us around the grocery store before finally approaching. My extreme discomfort about being stalked, even if the excuse was just social awkwardness or an inherent weirdness, made my decision, if nothing else did: I was definitely _not_ going to Rosalie's tea party.


End file.
